Lost In The Mountains
by problematick
Summary: My version of how the 1996 episode of "Full Engagement" should have played out. HM shipperness. One-shot. Rated for languageviolence(slight)implications. [Rather short, only Harm and Mac scenes.]


**AN: Hiya! This is one of my first fanfics still, cause I'm having a bit of trouble finding the time to write the story ideas that pop into my head! Especially when I'm watching an episode, man I think of all the different ways H/M shipperness coulda been added here and there! Ok, well...here we go!**

**Spoiler: My way of how Full Engagement should go.**

**Disclaimer: No Harm&Mac shippers would have ulcers from season 9 if I owned this show. And it would be on cable (for obvious reasons :ahem: )**

Mac sucks in a breath and clenches her teeth, the skin around the bleeding injury already becoming tender.

"How bad?" She looks up and around, anywhere but Harm and her pain-filled thigh.

"Buckshot wound, I can't tell how deep." Harm rummaged around in the bag after glancing back at it.

"Deep enough to hurt like hell." She sniffs hard, gritting her teeth and gripping the edge of the rock she was sitting on so hard her knuckles turned white.

"I've gotta put something on this...it's gonna hurt more in a minute."

"Look, just put something on it before it gets infected." She finally faced him, an exasperated look on her fine features. The pain subsided for an instant as she stared into those pretty blue eyes of his.

"Ok, Mac. You asked for it." Without another word, he leaned over and kissed her hard, her lips captured by his. Her eyes widened, but she didn't' pull away. In a moment Mac's eyes closed, but Harm's hands hadn't been idle. In a flash, he had unscrewed the top to a small flask of bourbon. Cracking on eye, he poured the alcoholic liquid on the bullet wound. Mac cried out, but it was muffled by the kiss and her brows furrowed in pain. That only made Harm deepen the kiss, taking another step forward and leaning Mac back onto the rock she was perched on, supporting her with a hand on the small of her back. When Mac's body finally relaxed, he slowly pulled his lips from hers, both their eyes opening and locking with the others for a lingering moment as their lips disengaged. He raised her back into a sitting position, and she just blinked and raised a hand to her mouth, fingertips grazing over her burning lips. Her whole body was on fire with a zinging energy. Harm watched her with a careful eye as he cleaned and wrapped her leg. Mac found her voice soon after.

"You didn't have to...you shouldn't have done that. I'm a Marine. I can take pain."

"But wasn't it much nicer that way?" He answered so simply an innocently while he continued to wind gauze around her thigh.

She hated to admit it, but that kiss had caught her unawares and off guard, an unusual thing for Sarah Mackenzie. For the blissful moments their lips were locked, Mac had forgotten not only about her leg, but also the whole ordeal and the fact that she was stranded in the woods, injured. She said nothing, but the slight blush she failed at staving off that rose to her cheeks told Harm enough.

**(Continue the episode until Mac falls and they take a rest.)**

Harm looks at her.

"You wanna talk about it?"

"Not particularly," she retorts with a hint of sarcasm. She looks away, breathing heavily.

"I'm sorry I left you there."

"If you hadn't we'd probably both be dead by now." She replied. After another moment of silence, he spoke again.

"How'd he lose his gun?" She sniffed and looked down.

"Set it down. Opted for the knife. He was going to use it to intimidate me while he...uh..." She trailed off, her body shaking slightly. Harm caught the implication and his anger rose. It made his blood boil that a man would to that to _any_ woman, especially one he loved. Whoa! Did he really just associate his love with Mac?! He only meant the kind of love friends have for one another...right? Well that kiss earlier begged to differ. Mac's strained expression as she shifted caught his eye and brought him out of his thoughts.

"Bastard had it coming, right?" She asked, needing the comfort of justification of the poacher's death. He nodded.

"Right."

Mac sniffed once more, holding off the tears that threatened to spill. As her brown eyes moved off him and glanced around warily, Harm noticed a new emotion in them, which he never expected to see and frightened him, really.

Fear.

**(Skip to next H/M scene.)**

Harm comes out of a small cave.

"This is our home for the evening. I'll insulate the inside, but we'll have to use our body heat to keep warm."

"Lovely," Mac says, not looking up.

"You might feel differently when the temperatures drop below freezing." Mac had been wiping at her shirt while she sat on a rock. Harm paused in his clearing of brush.

"Blood's not comin' out..." Harm threw away the last branch and straightened.

"Hey, I'll buy you a new one."

"I can't get it out." She pulls and tugs at her bloodied shirt with even bloodier hands. "Get me some water." Mac still rubbed at her flannel shirt.

"Mac, it's ok." Harm starts walking towards her. She wrings her hands together and twists her shirt as silent tears live streaks on her dirt covered cheeks.

"I can't get it out!" She cries. Harm kneels next to her, cooing softly.

"It's ok. It's ok." He tries to help her but she pushes him away.

"I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm FINE!" She panted and then took a few shaky breaths. Harm took her hands, ignoring her weak fight against him. She struggled despite his calm voice trying to reach her. He held her wrists tightly and firmly, but remaining as gentle as possible. He laced his fingers through her blood-covered ones, and when she looked down at his strong hands swallowing up her small ones, she broke down even further, the tears falling freely as sobs racked her body. He pulled her into a light embrace, and quieted her. A minute or so later, he gently pulled back from her, and wiped away the tears on her face with the pad of his thumb, pulling out a handkerchief and finishing the job, not letting her do it herself, just because. She sniffed and closed her eyes.

**(Skip to after Mac's story about Eddie...)**

"I can still bitch about freezing my butt off can't I?" She took the cigar back from him and took a small puff.

"Hey you've got ten percent more body fat than I do."

"You callin' me fat, 'Stick Boy'?" Mac looks at him, giving him a warning stare, raising one eyebrow slowly. Harm looks at her incredulously.

"Stick Boy?"

"Oh, and don't think I have forgotten that Beltway Burger remark."

"Hey, I don't force you to eat that crap!" He shakes his head. "Stick boy. Stick boy...heh heh heh..." Harm chuckles and lays back, putting his hands behind his head and staring up at the night sky. "It's really beautiful."

"What is?" Mac asks, glancing back over her shoulder at the prone Harm. He raises an arm and sweeps it in front of him.

"The sky. The earth."

"Mm..." she murmured agreement, and gave him back his cigar, coughing lightly. "Let's just get some sleep." She sniffed and lay down next to him, but he sat back up. "What are you doing? I thought we had to share body heat?" He grunted lightly as he stood up. Mac eyed his six as he stood in front of her in those tight jeans. '_Stop it, Mackenzie. This is no time to be thinking about your best friend like that. You're in no position to get any lovin' right now.' _Mac gasped silently. '_Did I just think that?! Oh god...'_ Harm brought back some pine boughs and then put out the fire, leaving them in darkness except for faint moonlight. She heard, rather than saw, him sit back down, and pull the leafy branches over them as he scooted close to her. She smiled slightly at an excuse to snuggle with Harm, his body so fit and strong. She laid her head next to his, whispering lightly.

"Goodnight."

"I'm really sorry Mac. I wish none of this had happened."

"Don't beat yourself up about it, remember? Now quiet, I want to sleep before we have to run again tomorrow." Harm smiled, looking at Mac's face, half in shadow, half out. Her olive skin was so smooth and beautiful...

"Night."

"Oh yeah. Harm?"

"Yeah?"

"If you breathe a word to _anyone_ back at JAG about me breaking down earlier, I will hunt you down and kill you. Got it?" Harm's eyes opened, and he looked around, glancing at Mac, whose eyes were closed, and her face was perfectly serious.

"Uh...yeah."

**(Blah blah blah, skip to when they are in the plane, flying home.)**

Mac turned slightly in her seat in the small biplane, yelling back at Harm.

"This Sarah...do you still love her?"

"I'm wild about her!" Harm replies, watching for her reaction. Mac's face fell visibly, despite goggles over her eyes and tops of her cheeks.

"She's my grandmother." Mac's jaw dropped slightly and even with the goggles hiding her face, Harm saw a blush.

"It's a coincidence that your name is Sarah, too, Mac. But..." Mac looked back again, a little hopeful.

"I...I'm wild about you too." He barely whispered, and Mac almost didn't catch it. But she thought she heard it, and smiled contently to herself.

Maybe this trip hadn't gone so badly after all.

**AN: Well, I hope that wasn't too horrible! I MIGHT, I say again MIGHT, make a sequel to this, IF yall like it and review.**


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